Underwater Internet cable will connect South America and Australia directly for the first time
The world's first underwater Internet cable will be laid, which will connect South America with Australia.
The Humboldt cable laying project will be implemented jointly with the Chilean state infrastructure fund Desarrollo Pais and the Office of Posts and Telecommunications of French Polynesia. Google has also joined the consortium. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2026.
The 14,800 km highway will cross the Asia-Pacific region. It will stretch from Chile to Australia with a "stop" in French Polynesia. The cable will help link alternative routes of the South Pacific Connect initiative.
Chile has had a request for a similar communication line since 2016. In August 2022, Desarrollo Pais and the BW Digital - H2 Cable division headquartered in Singapore made a request for proposals for the construction of a cable from Valparaiso (Chile) to Sydney (Australia) with potential branches to the Chilean archipelago of Juan Fernandez, Easter Island, New Zealand and even Antarctica.
The cost of this project is $400 million. Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP) The United States plans to allocate $15 million for the project to provide fast and secure access to several island countries in the Pacific Ocean.
There are already underwater cables that cross the Pacific Ocean and connect Asia and North America — the Southern Cross Next project. The Hawaiki Nui, the Curie cable that connects California with Chile, is also being laid.
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